My best life

Friday had all the makings of a great day. First, it’s a Friday. Second, it was the day of my birthday party. Third, since it was the day before my birthday I planned on having a fun little crafty/Christmas time with my homeroom at the end of the day. Fourth, it’s casual Friday so I wore leggings and a dress! But while all of that good stuff was totally and absolutely true, I was being a super grumpy grouch with my first group of students on Friday. I was snapping at them for stupid stuff and losing my patience a lot faster than normal and refusing to help them on their English worksheet for little to no reason. Finally I was like, “What the heck, Suzanne?”

Then it hit me! Although we usually start every school day with prayer, on Friday I was too distracted but some stupid project to pray with my students before we started class. Although I have been reading my Bible every day for the past month (since I got my ESV journaling Bible – there’s just something about a new Bible that says, “Read me! Read all of me!”) I skipped that on Friday, too. For no good reason. I was being such a grumpy Gus because I had skipped all of the usual times I take every day to connect with Jesus.

It was a revelation!

So I said, “Oh my word, you guys! I know why I’m in such a bad mood!” And then I walked over to the bookshelf, plucked the Spanish-English Bible off the shelf and opened up to the Psalms. To Psalm 51 specifically, which says (among other things),

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
-Psalm 51:7-12

So on Friday morning after my revelation the first grade prayer captain of the week prayed, I taught the kids the song, “Create in Me a Clean Heart,” and we moved on with our day much more joyfully. I am constantly reminded of how important my relationship with God is – like, every time I skip my morning time with God. At the beginning of class when we pray and a student is messing around during prayer time I tell them, “God is waiting to hear from you,” and every time God says, “I’m waiting to hear from you, too.”

This morning I read the second half of Nehemiah and in the super handy lined margin next to Nehemiah 9:28-29 I wrote, “God’s law -> life.” God has given me everything I need to live my best life possible. Not my easiest life, not even my happiest or most comfortable life, but my best life possible. All I have to do is choose that life every morning when I wake up. It starts and ends with Him.